


If you love something, let it go

by kireiflora



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Episode 11 tag, M/M, Oblivious Victor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8942803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kireiflora/pseuds/kireiflora
Summary: Watching Victor watch the other skaters, Yuuri knew it was time for this to end. He couldn't selfishly keep Victor here with him any longer, it was time to finally let him go like he'd known would happen from the very start.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This has been calling me for the past week, I needed to write this after episode 11, but I was busy picking up the pieces of my shattered heart and couldn't bring myself to sit down and do it.

Despite his feelings going into it, his focus on Victor and himself, he feels the story - the emotion - slipping away as he gets started, which frustrates him, and he’s sure it shows.

But he’s too far into this to try and recover, so he throws himself fully into focusing on the jumps rather than split his concentration and chance a fall. He remembers when he’d proposed the quad flip change back in Hasetsu, and feeds off those feelings as best he can.

He touches the ice on the quad flip anyway, he goes into the final moves but his head is stuck back in the flip. He threw away emotion for jumps and couldn’t even get that right. He was doomed from the second he got into position.

It all comes crashing down on him, as he gasps for breath, and he gives into the urge to fall to his knees, the entire thing replaying in his mind, every screw up. He’s failed. He falls more forward, clenched fists on the ice as he shakes, pressing his forehead against the cold surface.

That is, without a doubt, the worst he’s ever done. At the grand prix, again. _Fool._

Somehow, he gets off the ice, sitting in the kiss and cry with Victor, shaking hands hidden by a warm towel.

“Here’s the score for Katsuki Yuuri.”

His head snaps up in a dim hope. 97.83. It is in fact, just about the worst he’s ever done. But better than he was expecting.

He watches Phichit skate a bit disconnected, drawn in by his performance, which turns out flawless. A wonderful entertainer to the very end, they get kicked out of the kiss and cry by Yurio, and he’s quickly dragged into an interview.

He has half an eye on the TV showing Yurio’s performance when he realizes Victor isn’t at his side, he tries not to worry about it, but he does finish off the interview as fast as he politely can to go looking for him, he doesn’t usually wander off like that.

Yurio’s performance ends, and he finally finds Victor, standing at the top of a staircase, where he’d been clearly watching from. “Victo-” he cuts himself off as he takes in his stance, and his heart stutters to a stop in his chest, and he stops moving.

He hears Yurio’s score get announced, and only then does Victor start to turn towards him.

“I was curious how it was going too.” he spits out, burying the rapid beating of his heart deep down inside him, not letting it show.

“Chris is about to start, let’s find seats.” Victor replies.

He follows him up the stairs to where Sara and other skaters that didn’t qualify are sitting. It’s where he probably should’ve been to begin with. _It’s Yurio, of course he’s interested in how he’s doing, he created that program for him, of course he wants to know how he did. Of course._

No matter how many times he repeats ‘of course’ though, it doesn’t help. He didn’t expect it to but he’s trying, there’s a dirty little voice whispering to him. _If he’d stayed with Yurio, he’d be ecstatic at what just happened, he’d be proud and celebrating and happily talking about taking Yurio out for whatever he wanted._ He can see it, Victor, hugging the prickly teen, lifting him into the air, probably throwing him a little, screaming in rapid-fire Russian about how happy and proud of him he was.

Instead he’s here, sitting in the stands with a failure. His gut churns.

Chris takes off into his skate, and he looks at Victor and sees the way he’s looking down at him, soft eyes and smiling. Probably lost in memories of competing against the swiss man. Even the commentators are saying it.

 _I thought the same thing when he watched Yurio…_ He looks away. _He wants to be down there on the ice, with Yurio, who he would’ve risen to greatness, and Chris, his competitor and long time friend._ You don’t place against the same people year after year without becoming friends.

Yurio puts his feet up behind him and cheers for Otabek, who Yuuri knows might just be his first friend, judging from how they looked in the Cafe last night.

He can hear Yurio getting fired up, just a little, behind him, and he can see Victor’s sharp eyes following him as well.

“Another score higher than the pigs.” Yurio calls out.

“He’s great. That was very exotic, it felt so fresh!” Victor pipes up, voice high with happiness.

He feels even worse. If it wasn’t for him, Victor could be out there, skating against this new talent. Against a Yurio with _two_ programs he created, against the dark horse of Otabek and of course Chris, Phichit would give him a run for his money as well, and JJ who was starting now was also very talented.

Unlike Yuuri.

The entire stadium is shocked as JJ misses his jump, forgetting about his combo. And then a quad turns into a single. The pressure of this stadium has taken it’s toll on the first time qualifier.

He flashes back to his last year at the grand prix, how he’d buckled as well, falling on every jump. He felt a small glimmer of pride in JJ for not falling, and seeing it through to the very end.

Nobody can think poorly of JJ though, he took on a big challenge, and made it to the grand prix, and he’s sure he’ll come back strong in the free skate now that he knows what the pressure is like, this is JJ after all.

 _I have no regrets for taking on my own challenge this time._ He thinks, though he can feel the emotions he’s been shoving back rising like a tidal wave. _I made it here, to the top six, twice. That’s nothing to be scoffed at._

JJ ends in sixth. It’s not surprising, but he’s clearly crushed all the same.

The stadium rises to cheer him up, and he composes himself to call out a ‘JJ style!’ showing his fans he’s not giving up yet.

\-----

They go out for dinner and his mind is a million miles away but he plays it off easily, the only one that would’ve realized what’s going on is Phichit, and he’s wrapped up in his own worries. Victor, for as well as he knows him, hasn’t seen this enough to recognize the signs, and he’s grateful, he doesn’t want him to know the full extent, the China cup had been bad enough.

So he silently goes through a full mental breakdown at the dinner table.

Pass the salt when asked. _I don’t belong here._

Grab the waiters attention for someone that needs a refill. _Victor should be the one skating here._

Dessert? No, none of us should try for dessert. _I was kidding myself the whole time, I got wrapped up in the pride of taking Victor away I forgot I was taking Victor away from what he loves._

Post-dinner chatting? He can follow just enough to not draw attention to his lack of interest. _I wish I’d lost the onsen on ice, he would’ve done so much better with Yurio._

Phichit, you’ve had more than enough to drink tonight, only water. _I should get on the first plane back to Japan, I’ve been a long enough waste of time._

Chris, please don’t encourage Victor to get drunk, he’ll strip. _Yurio was right last year, I should’ve retired fully. I shouldn’t have come back this year._

Victor, I will leave you here if you get drunk enough to strip. Victor stops asking for alcohol. _Victor could’ve been convincing Yurio not to drink after he broke his record, could be encouraging him to do even better tomorrow. He could be with the new winner._

Yurio you should ask Yakov to let you stay longer. Use reverse psychology on the tired teenager. _He wanted to be out there today, instead he’s taken a year off for nothing. He doesn’t have many years left in him, I should’ve insisted he go back to Russia, I would’ve been fine a couple more years down the row to have him as my coach, after he retired._

Chris, I saw that. _But none of that_ is _what happened. So instead…_

 _Instead I’ll go out in a blaze of glory. I won’t save anything, I’ll pour my everything into tomorrow, and maybe I’ll manage to place. If I can manage that...well it won’t be great but it’ll be something. I might collapse on the ice, but I might make Victor’s time at least slightly worth it._ Victor, it’s really time for us all to be leaving.

Good luck everyone!

The walk through the hotel is silent.

\-----

“Victor.” he starts.

“Huh?” he pulls back from where he was heading into the bathroom, for a shower Yuuri realizes.

“Ah-after you’re done I want to talk to you.” he smiles in what he hopes is a disarming way.

“Okay!” he chirps, and continues in.

No matter how much he wants to, no matter how much he longs for it, he can’t keep Victor here with him.

No matter how he wishes to spend the rest of his life with Victor, he has no right to keep him here, no right to keep him bound to him. He has no right to keep him from skating, he’d silently vowed to Yakov to return Victor to him, and he was going to do that finally. Today just cemented it in his mind, Victor deserved to be out there with the skaters that were doing what they loved, even if he wasn’t skating himself he could coach one of them, Yurio probably.

He couldn’t possibly ask Victor to stay in Japan, but nor could he see himself in Russia, Victor had known some Japanese when he came to Japan but Yuuri? Yuuri didn’t know any Russian, he wanted to do whatever he could to be with Victor, but the thought of being all alone in a country where he understood nothing was terrifying. And Victor would be kept busy coaching Yurio and wouldn’t have much time left for him, and it’d all come tumbling down anyway. He’d rather rip the bandage off now than wait for himself to grow to hate Victor.

  


If you love something...you’re supposed to let it go, right?

  


“After the final...let’s end this."

**Author's Note:**

> Depending on how episode 12 goes I might add onto this, but for now it's a oneshot.
> 
> Edit: I'm feeling a chapter 2


End file.
